


Incorrigible

by MycroftRH



Category: The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Prostitution, Suicidal Action, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 19:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13887180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MycroftRH/pseuds/MycroftRH
Summary: Moira is a trans woman, and she wants to watch it all burn.





	Incorrigible

There’s a whole lot of women that can’t be sorted properly, into breeders and maids and wives. A whole lot more than they’ll admit. There are some who were just too over-educated, some dykes, the incorrigibles who aren’t docile enough for proper women’s work no matter how much they’re beaten. There’s all the women who aren’t white, and they have to be taken out of the breeding pool somehow, either sterilized and made into Marthas or exiled. Or executed. Most infertiles are just made into Marthas, but there are some who can’t be put away in the kitchen. A lot of disabled women end up exiled or dead, not fit for breeding and not good for work. (Exiled is the same as dead, for them.) And then there are the people like her, who they try hard to pretend don’t exist.

Moira would have been exiled or executed immediately if they had known at first. There were some people high up who were sympathetic, and she had plenty of friends in the community – the community that no longer exists – who did their best to help her. So she avoided the physical examinations that would have shown that she was a gender traitor (not an official term, because they officially didn’t exist, but she’d heard it used).

Moira escaped when she was told that a new round of examinations was coming. She didn’t tell anyone that was her reason, of course. That would only increase the risk for her if she got dragged back. The first time she escaped they couldn’t do the examination because it would have shown that she was being more maltreated than was technically legal at the time. The second time, she wasn’t as lucky.

By then, they had an (unofficial) policy for gender traitors. They obviously couldn’t be breeders, and since they were legally classed as male now, regardless of whether they had changed their gender markers legally before, they couldn’t be fit into the system anywhere else, either. They were too feminine to be true male citizens but not female enough to be wives or Marthas. But there were always the brothels.

The women who didn’t pass well enough were executed. The ones who were pretty, who looked enough like they were cis, the ones who had lucky genes or hormones or surgery, they were given another job. There are always men who want something special.

In her building, there’s her and the lawyer. They’re marked with a blue bow on the shoulder, to let clients know they’re a little something special. (They’re not clients, but one of the girls was a rather sarcastic therapist, and she spread the terminology to the rest of them, and maybe it makes them feel a little more human.)

So now here she is, in the oldest profession. They did something to her, before they brought her here; she’s not sure what, but she knows she doesn’t think as well as she used to and the others don’t either (the lawyer could never be a lawyer again). The incorrigibles need to be kept down. Part of it’s probably the drugs they keep pumping through the air system, a light combination of aphrodisiacs and downers, keeping the clients happy and the workers compliant. But a lot of it’s permanent. She can feel her head clear up when they go back to the dorms at night, but there’s always a film in front of her eyes.

It’s her and the lawyer who come up with the plan but all of the girls, all of the incorrigibles, they help and work together. They’re all willing to do whatever it takes, all ready to go – go away, go down with the ship if that’s where it ends. Maybe the drugs weren’t such a good idea, after all; the constant down keeps them complacent, but it means they don’t mind the risk so much, either.  
One of the incorrigibles was a chemist; she’s assigned to the formulation. One of them has a client who gives her drugs outside of the ones they’re normally given; those are used to dope the Aunts. A couple of the larger dykes volunteer to act as muscle. Several of them work together to find the materials.

There’s a sweet girl, an artist, who volunteers to set it off. She’s small and waifish and, once upon a time, would have been exactly Moira’s type. Her voice is lilting. She’s a dark, bluish black. All non-whites were taken out of the breeding population, exiled or sterilized and made into Marthas, but this girl was given to the brothel instead. Some of the clients like a bit of color, and they must have felt she was too pretty to waste. She remakes their outfits, sometimes. She was an oil painter before. When Moira told them that someone would need to stay behind to set it off, the artist volunteered almost before she had finished.

They wait until 22:30, at the peak time for important Commanders. The Aunts are doped just enough to be slow. The chemist has passed the explosive off to the artist. Moira makes eye contact with the lawyer across the room, who nudges the artist to go to the bathroom. The artist passes the Aunt, who barely looks at her. All the incorrigibles have been detaching themselves from their clients for the last several minutes, and now start to move towards the door.

The clients are more down from the drugs pumped into in the building than the girls, not having had years to build up tolerance to the cocktail. It takes them a while to notice that they’re being left alone. By the time they do, the dykes have arranged themselves strategically. When somebody finally shouts, the dykes move into action, slipping their feet out of their heels and swinging their fists. All the girls run for the doors, left open by an Aunt who had been in the business before everything changed.

The drugged men, too many of them, have taken down the dykes. The doped Aunts have awakened enough to start coming after the girls with shock batons. The girls are screaming and running and fighting.

The ground shakes before the sound processes before the light flashes before the wall blows out. It knocks down more men than girls, more of them standing at the back of the room near the bathroom. The ceiling starts to fall almost as soon as the wall blows and now everyone’s running, the clients and the incorrigibles alike.

A secondary explosion throws them to the ground. Sequins scatter the ground under a fallen girl, her blue dress flowing under a crushing beam. Moira sees the lawyer try to lift the beam. She dodges the shock baton of an Aunt still trying to take them down.

The girls are running ahead of her, spreading out, some dragged down by men or taken down by Aunts with a scream and a blue sizzle. She can feel the heat pushing at her back like the rush of air from an oven but so much harder, the light and fire more blinding than concrete in a Texas summer, heat haze warping her vision and making the ground waver. Her ears can hear the high pitches of the screams and the bass waves of the fire but nothing in between, the sound of the first explosion having broken her somehow. She can’t quite tell which way is up, the sky the same dizzy red as the ground. She trips over something, something bright green and blue and soft, a glittering mermaid in the fire.

She falls and turns. The sky resolves itself. She can see, see clearly, like the film that’s been over her eyes for years has finally pulled away. She can see the building, mostly caved in, one wall standing. She can see the fire, two stories high. She can see a Commander on the ground. She had him once. He was an ass.

She watches the fire burn.


End file.
